Station:    KCOL, 700 am

Show:       KCOL Mornings with Jimmy Lakey

Guests:    Robinson, Doug

Link:       http://600kcol.iheart.com/featured/kcol-morning-s-with-jimmy-lakey/

Date:        September 6, 2017

Topics:     Medicaid Expansion, Able-bodied adults, Income Criteria, Teacher Shortage, Teacher Licensure,  Transportation Funding, Colorado General Budget, Prioritized Budget,

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(NOTE:  These notes were compiled while listening to the interview with Congressman Coffman.  All comments noted are paraphrased, unless specifically identified as direct quotes.)

JIMMY LAKEY: Welcome

DOUG ROBINSON: Love your show, so thrilled to be on. You’re right, lot of candidates in the race. Future of Colorado.

Q: By the way some say it could end up being 12 candidates. I sense frustration from everyday, grassroots republican – who is going to tell me the truth? Some campaign one way then vote a different way. Do you sense that angst and what is your answer?

DR: Absolutely. I’ve never been a candidate before so this is a new thing for me. Traveled around, been to IDK, 50-60-80, different meetings around the state. There is angst, frustration – washington has not got things done. Concern about all politicians. Two things I hear the most- they want a candidate who can win and two, they’re frustrated about roads and traffic. Absolutely want someone who is a straight talker and that’s motivation for getting in the race. I’ve never been a politician before. I want to solve problems and make CO great state – it is great but we need to grab hold of challenges.

Q: roads are broken. Seems to be no plan by current gov. $68 million in Volkswagen settlement. CS Gazette says why don’t we apply that to fixing I-25? Gov says no we need to put charging stations all around the state and buy new buses. I don’t think anybody understands – outside of Denver we are ticked off that nobody wants to fix our roads

DR: [laughs] yeah. I’ve had so much personal experience with this as a candidate. Two weeks ago, I was speaker at Weld CO Republican Club in Greeley. 7AM – I live in Englewood south of Denver – I said hour 10 minutes, that’ll be plenty. Guess what? 6:45 it’s bumper to bumper. It can be fixed. Widening that road- all the environmental studies have been done, work has been done, it’s just about money and we do have the money. We’ve got the money in the budget. Not talking that much in the scheme of things. With $300 million we can borrow $3.5 billion we need and pay debt service annually on that $300 million –  interest and principal payback. Just like Gov. Owens did. We need Owens 2 or trans bonds 2. That project on I-25 and I-70 widening are at the top of the list. They want it fixed now.

 

4:30 Q: all about Denver. Do you sense that people are frustrated that Hickenlooper is governor of part of state but not all of state?

DR: Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Hickenlooper is governor of Denver. Everywhere I go in rural parts of state, but not just there – Colorado Springs, Greeley, Fort Collins – there’s this sense that Denver is running Colorado. Not Colorado people moved here for. Denver vision, or Hickenlooper vision, or democrats is to take us more towards California. Raise our taxes to do all that stuff with electric vehicles and all of that, that’s not what we want. Not what Colorado is. People who live in metro area, we have to worry about them too, but we need to talk about all Coloradans.

Q: website

DR: dougforcolorado.com. Facebook.

Q: a lot of candidates. Separate yourself from rest of them, what makes DR different from let’s say possibly 11 candidates?

DR: All republicans and independents should be asking that. Long job interview. First have to say, which candidates have ability to run serious statewide campaign in a general election? I think that takes about half of candidates that are in out. Then you look at those and say what’s their background? I think probably 80% of the things we say- we’re republicans, we believe in limited gov’t and a hand-up not a hand-out, those sorts of things – what separates us, what is our background? Where do we come from? How can we lead this state? I think that’s what seperates me. I’m an outsider. Have to look at that, do you want someone from system or somebody outside system?

 

9:01 DR: I’ve spent my career in business but also in community. Started two non-profits. Been very involved in community and on boards. Professional life, I’m an entrepreneur. Started business. What we did was advise other businesses on how to grow and so on. All about jobs, better jobs, better wages, and about kids. I think I have unique skillsets based on my background.

Q: teacher shortage. Medicaid expansion. Colorado doesn’t seem to know how to navigate expanded medicaid versus paying teachers versus fixing roads. How do you balance that and address medicaid?

DR: When you look at budget that’s one of things that hits you over the head. When Hickenlooper took office, that was 15% of state budget. Today, almost 26%. Gone up dramatically in that time. Average budget has gone up over a billion year. We’re spending $700 more per Coloradan than we did in 2010. Yet no money for schools, roads, this or that. The root of it a lot is healthcare. We need to look at medicaid really hard. I’ve got a bunch of ideas. Start with, right now it’s just an income test, so I believe there’s a segment of people, through no fault of their own, are able to get it who are able to own their home or significant net worth, don’t have much of an income. We should ask if those people should be on the rolls or should be paying their own healthcare. Start to look at innovative solutions. Something state of Rhode Island has done. Significant part of our care is for poor elderly people. The solution tends to be to put them in nursing homes. Most would prefer to stay in their own home with alternative home care which is half the cost. If Congress would give us block grant to the state we would figure it out and use it much more effectively than it’s being used now.

Q: website

DR: dougforcolorado.com. One other comment, you were talking about shortage of teachers and this is a crisis in a lot of the state – I’ve had success in business, been asked by Uni of Denver to teach entrepreneurial finance classes, but I can’t do that in a high school! Because I don’t have the teaching certificate. I can do it in college but not high school. We need to look at licensing. Lot of capable people who are retired or have skills that would be great teachers in the classroom – they don’t want to go back for 18 months or 2 years to get that teaching certificate. What can we do to shorten that process?

Q: success of charter schools. Get around licensing problem. Are you a golfer, Doug?

DR: I am. Let me tell you, running for office is terrible for your golf game. I had my first round in Boulder last week, usually I play a dozen or more times by then.

Q: I have a charity golf tournament if you want to come

DR: Thanks